Ganja worth Rs 1.6 crore hidden between bricks seized, three held

HYDERABAD: Despite the crackdown by enforcement officials, peddlers continue to employ ingenious ways to transport ganja across the states, apparently because of the big money one makes trading in the contraband.

On Wednesday night, a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) team intercepted a truck in Choutuppal and seized 1,121 kilos of ganja worth Rs 1.68 crore, concealed between fly ash bricks. Earlier this year, a Hyderabad DRI team had intercepted a gang transporting ganja in an ambulance.
Acting on specific intelligence, the DRI team intercepted a truck (MH-13R-4039) on Wednesday night at Panthangi toll plaza in Choutuppal.“We saw fly ash bricks in the truck. Three persons in the cabin said they were transporting bricks from Andhra Pradesh to Maharashtra. When we searched the truck, we found 546 bundles of ganja concealed under the bricks,” a DRI official said.
The ganja was tightly packed using duct tape to conceal the contraband. The DRI team opened the bundles and recovered 1121.5 kilos of ganja worth Rs 1.68 crore. On interrogation, the trio, arrested by the DRI team, confessed that they procured ganja from a supplier in Sileru Agency area of Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh. “The gang was transporting the ganja to Solapur in Maharashtra,” a DRI official said.
The DRI sleuths, who were part of the probe, said the accused procured ganja by paying about Rs 2,000 a kilo to the supplier and they sell the same to retailers for about Rs 5,000 a kilo. The retailers pack the ganja into small sachets and, by selling it in streets, make about Rs 15,000 per kilo.
Excise department officials of Telangana said most of the ganja consumed in south India and Maharashtra comes from 13 mandals in Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh and 15 mandals of Korapur and Rayagada districts of Odisha. “Peddlers from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra provide seeds and pay advance amount during the sowing season to cultivators in the Agency areas. They make an oral agreement with the cultivator and purchase the ganja directly from him,” an excise department official said.
The DRI officials said that ganja addiction among youth often leads to abuse of other drugs like LSD and cocaine. “So, crackdown against ganja cultivation and peddling is key to prevent the menace of drug addiction,” a senior DRI official said.